DETROIT -- Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock can't complain about a 3-1-1 start for a club that has yet to "engage.''

The Red Wings have a good opportunity to engage over the next two
weeks. They have four games in 17 days, all at Joe Louis Arena, starting
Thursday against the Calgary Flames. Detroit plays 10 of its next 13 at
home.

"I think our team has to engage,'' Babcock said after Saturday's
2-1 overtime win in Phoenix. "What I mean by that is the game's a real
simple game. You got to compete harder than the other team. If you do
that, you can win.

"If you want to skill yourself around the rink you're not going to
win very many nights. On a consistent basis, (you need) wave after wave
going after the other team, winning all the loose puck battles. Our
power play will be better when that happens.''

The Red Wings failed to score on their first seven power plays
against Phoenix. On their eighth attempt, Niklas Kronwall blasted in a
one-timer on a pass from Henrik Zetterberg with 16 seconds remaining in
overtime.

Detroit has gone 2-for-13 on the power play its past two games,
clearly missing two key parts in right-handed shooting point man Brian
Rafalski (knee, out three weeks) and power forward Johan Franzen
(concussion, possible for Thursday).

"There's no question without Rafi we don't move as much on the
power play as we normally do with a right and left shot (at the
points),'' Babcock said. "We have to work on that.''

Kronwall said the power play has been a little static.

"We enter the zone pretty much every time, but a lot of times it's
one (shot) and done,'' Kronwall said. "We have to just shoot the puck a
little more, move around a little more. That way we can get some motion
and more pucks to the net.''

The Red Wings also need their third line (Mike Modano, Dan Cleary,
Jiri Hudler) to click. Hudler has no goals and two assists. Babcock said
Modano's third period Saturday was his best in five games, but he has
no points since scoring a goal in the season opener.

"I think they're going in the right direction,'' Babcock said.
"Hudler's gotten better every game. Cleary's been good, but I thought
Mike was really competitive, had the puck on his stick, got involved
physically, made good plays, skated.''

The Coyotes outshot the Red Wings 12-5 in the first period and led
1-0 on Martin Hanzal's goal with 9.7 seconds to play. Detroit outshot
Phoenix 28-14 the rest of the way, getting the tying goal from Pavel
Datsyuk at 7:03 of the second period and eventually capitalizing on the
Coyotes' lack of discipline.

Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom also believes the team hasn't played its best hockey yet.

"We had bits and pieces in games where we had a strong start and
fall off in the second period or come out slow and then pick it up,''
Lidstrom said. "We haven't had that sustained tempo for 60 minutes.
That's something we need to do, especially against teams like this,
where they're clogging up the neutral zone.''

Babcock said the team needed this four-day break to work on some things.

"We'll do some skating, which we need to do,'' Babcock said. "I
think we can skate better as a team and work on our specialty teams. I
thought our penalty kill was fantastic (killing all four chances
Saturday).''